


So Pretty, It Hurts

by theaceupmyownsleeve



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Adora's muscles, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Gentle Kissing, Gentleness, Hurt Adora (She-Ra), It's just Adora's back, Lesbian Disaster Adora (She-Ra), Married Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Massage, No Smut, Only a bit I promise, Sleepy Cuddles, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, a little bit of nudity but it's not explicit, girl in red title just because
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theaceupmyownsleeve/pseuds/theaceupmyownsleeve
Summary: Adora has had a tough training day and is bruised all over.Catra tries to help her relax, but all Adora wants to do is kiss her wife.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 264





	So Pretty, It Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> I have a 5 page essay but instead I am editing what I wrote yesterday at 2 am after being up since 3:30 am.

When Catra returned to her chambers in Brightmoon, the last thing she expected was for the door to already be partially cracked open.

“Adora?” She called, tossing her jacket into the corner, “Are you in here?” 

Catra’s ears twitched as a pained groan rose from their bed in the center of the room. 

“Are you alright?” She crossed the floor between them in two quick strides, her heart rising in her throat. 

“Hey, Catra.” Adora lay there before her, hands clasped over her eyes and the blanket halfheartedly hiked up to her bent knee. “Tough training,” she groaned. “Glimmer didn’t hold anything back today.” She shot up and grabbed for Catra’s wrist. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Said what?” she smirked, patting her hand, “I won’t say anything.” She tapped her lips, feigning thought. “Until I need it for game night blackmail, that is.” 

“You’re horrible.” Adora flopped back down, grimacing. “Ugh. If you can name a part of me that doesn’t hurt, you win a prize.”

Catra hopped up onto her legs in a single leap, bracing a hand over her wife’s shoulder. “Really? What prize?” she breathed, just an inch from her wife’s lips.

“Not having to see me cry after you dropped your entire weight onto my sore legs,” Adora huffed out, her breathing strained.

Catra’s playful attitude drained from her chest immediately, and she quickly shifted her body to sit at Adora’s side, reaching to hold her hand. “I didn’t realize you were that hurt.” 

“Not hurt enough to worry over,” Adora squeezed her hand.

She shook her head, shoving at her chest as gently as she could muster. “I’m not letting you get away with that lie. I know that lie. That’s  _ my _ lie.”

“We can share the lie.”

“Oh, please. 

“Really, Catra.” Adora propped herself up on her elbow to run her thumb down the line of her wife’s jaw. “My muscles are sore from training too long. That’s all. I don’t want you to fuss about me.”

“Says the Etherian princess of fussing,” Catra rolled her eyes. “What happened the last time I got a scraped knee? You chased me down the castle with some of Frosta’s ice?” 

“You were  _ bleeding.  _ What were you going to do? Lick it clean?”

Her tail puffed. “Yes?” 

“You wound me, Catra.” She stuck her lip out in a pout, blue eyes shining. 

Catra  _ knew  _ what she was doing. She always got a kiss when she looked at her like that, but— “Oh, no. Not this time. I’m not falling for it.”

“Falling for what?” Adora batted her eyes with mock innocence.

“You know I can’t resist you, it’s not fair—”

“Really? Tell me more.”

Catra had to resist the urge to shove her already injured wife off the bed. “You’re not distracting me that easily. What hurts?” 

“Legs and arms. My back especially. Glimmer teleported behind me and blew me off my feet. Her magic is getting stronger,” she clenched her fists, but her eyes glowed as she spoke. “I’m getting better at taking her on without Shera, though.”

“Is  _ that  _ why you’ve been training harder lately?” 

“No.”

Catra arched an eyebrow.

“Maybe.”

“Adora!” she ran her hands down her face, stretching out her cheeks. “I am trying  _ so hard  _ not to shake you right now.” She hopped down to the floor and raised a finger, pointing straight at Adora’s face. “Sit up.”

Her wife blinked. “What?”

“ _ Please  _ sit up, darling, light of my life, princess of saying cute stupid things?” she sighed.

Adora gritted her teeth as she dragged herself upright, her gaze never wavering from Catra’s. “Okay?” 

“Can you try to stay that way?”

“Pshh. Some princess I would be if I couldn't even sit up properly. I told you, I’m not hurt enough to worry over.”

Catra did not bother to reply, settling herself beside Adora and sweeping her blonde hair over her shoulder to expose her sweaty skin. Sliding her hand around her wife’s waist, she pressed a gentle kiss to her neck, sensing tensed muscle beneath her lips.

Adora blew out a gentle breath, craning her head to bare her neck further. 

Careful of her claws, Catra ran her fingers down her wife’s back, watching the way that her shoulders bunched beneath them. 

“Do you mind if I…?” She tugged at the hem of Adora’s shirt. 

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll see. Tell me if I hurt you at all.”

A shudder passed through her wife’s body as she ran one finger down her spine, careful not to press too hard. “You won’t,” she whispered, then winced. “I’m not sure I can raise my arms very far.”

“I’ll help you.” Raising herself to her knees, she gripped the bottom of her shirt and slowly worked it over her head, careful not to flatten her poof of hair. 

Adora’s bare back was laced with reddened marks, not quite bruises yet. If Catra had to guess, she had been thrown to the ground a few times. No wonder she was so sore. 

She tried not to look at the line of scars over her wife’s shoulder blades, deep scratch marks that would never heal. It had taken a long time for Catra to trust herself enough to touch Adora’s skin bare after she had seen them, but Adora’s faith in her had never wavered. 

If Adora was not hurt, Catra would have laid next to her for hours, pressing kisses to every one of her scars until the painful memories melted away, into nothing but Adora and her, forever entwined. Although less permanent, her wife’s bruises were far more pressing. 

Rubbing her hands together to warm them, she laid them gently over Adora’s shoulders, wincing at how tense they were. She pressed the pad of her thumb to the corner of her wife’s shoulder blade, feeling for iron tension that was knotting the muscle tighter than a drum. 

Adora sucked in a breath through her teeth as Catra’s fingers found a sore spot and pressed down. 

“Did I hurt you?” She spoke against Adora’s ear, reaching up to smooth her hair flat again. 

“No.”

“I know you can’t see it because I’m sitting behind you, but I’m rolling my eyes right now.” Catra tapped at her shoulder blade with one claw. “Liar. You carry more tension in your shoulders than a…” She scrunched up her face, reaching for a decent comparison and coming up empty. “Ugh. You just… carry a lot of tension.” 

Her wife chuckled, straining her head back over her shoulder, bright eyes flickering down to Catra’s mouth. 

She leaned down and pressed her lips to Adora’s, careful not to jostle her neck too much.

Adora hummed into the kiss, a happy little noise that made Catra’s heart squeeze, brimming over with the flood of warmth that rushed through her body at the sound. “You’re ridiculous,” she mumbled against her wife’s mouth, unable to stop the slow spread of her smile from stretching over her lips. “Now stop distracting me. I’m supposed to be helping you feel better.”

“This  _ is _ making me feel better.” She leaned backwards even further, chasing Catra’s retreating mouth. She let out a sudden gasp as her back seized, hands flying backwards to catch herself. 

Catra caught her by the shoulders, her tail fluffing at the sudden rush of adrenaline. She eased her down to lay flat on her stomach, stroking her hair out of the way. 

“I just want to kiss you,” she whined, wriggling around on the sheets until she could face Catra, head propped on her bent elbow. 

“First let me take care of you. You’ll get your kisses, Miss Impatience.”

“Mrs. Impatience to you,” Adora mumbled, flashing up a cheeky smile, but protesting no further. 

Catra returned the grin as she sat back, pressing her hands down on her wife’s bare back, tracing over bruised skin and solid muscle, strained and twisted into a web of painful knots. 

At the base of Adora’s spine, she pressed down, relishing the wave of pops and a small sigh as her bones settled back into their proper place. Trailing her hands upwards, she traced over Adora’s ribs, alternating between rubbing at the tense muscles and ghosting over the ticklish skin along her sides with the barest brush of her fingers. 

She squirmed but did not tell her to stop, and Catra could not help but smirk at the fact.

Finally, she reached Adora’s shoulder blades, where the most bruises lay.

Her muscles were like chorded steel beneath her hands. Normally, when Catra compared her wife’s muscles to iron, titanium, steel, and the like, her voice was full of admiration and her stomach was full of butterflies. 

This time, as she ran her hands over Adora’s upper back, it felt like trying to brace her hands against metal: tense and unyielding. 

“Adora…” she groaned. She knew just how much it hurt to carry that much tension around, but— “No training is worth this.”

“I didn’t realize how far I’d pushed myself until after I’d done it. I promise I wasn’t trying to—” Her words broke off with a grunt as Catra ground her knuckle into the juncture between her shoulder blade and neck, kneading Adora’s muscles the way that Meelog often did when one or both of them was stressed. 

After a few long moments, Adora’s back began to soften beneath her wife’s fingers, the tension draining from her body. 

Catra stayed careful, skirting around the bruises and watching Adora’s breathing, unable to help the smug feeling that rose in her chest at the sight of Adora finally relaxing under her hands. At some point, her eyes had flickered closed, and her breathing now held the steady rhythm of sleep. 

Pressing a kiss to her shoulder, Catra leaned down to tug the blanket up and over them both. Burrowing beneath Adora’s arm, she snuggled close to her, matching her breathing to hers. 

“You promised me kisses,” Adora grumbled, reaching out to pull Catra closer. 

“I thought you were asleep.”

“That’s no excuse.” Adora nuzzled into her wife’s neck, gently kissing up the sensitive skin of her throat, brushing her lips over her jaw, and Catra could do nothing but purr at her touch. 

Adora pushed herself up onto her elbow with clear intent to prop herself over Catra’s head and continue her path to her mouth, when her elbow buckled and her knee struck Catra in the gut. 

She huffed as her breath whooshed out of her. 

“Adora, as much as I love it when you kiss me like that, I think you should wait until you’ve slept on it.” She grimaced, rubbing at the sore spot on her stomach. 

“Sorry.” Adora’s face flushed darker. Settling herself back onto her side, she stretched a hand up to cup Catra’s chin. 

Tugging gently, she pulled Catra’s lips to her own, hands sliding back into her hair, cradling her skull reverently, as if Catra were the one whose body was battered. 

Or maybe holding Catra so close made her own pain go away. Catra was not about to question it, wrapped in warmth and the taste of Adora on her lips. 

Even when they broke the kiss, they held each other close as they drifted off to sleep, safe and content in one another’s arms. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Want more WLW and MLM fluff and romance? 
> 
> Check out my newest original work!   
> Not Quite Romeo the Audio Play— now on Youtube! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sZ-hmkQFSA&t=617s


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